A colleague at my company's DC office remarked that a lot of locals are incensed that National was renamed Reagan-National by congress. Nobody calls it Reagan-National, the conducters on the metro go out of their way to call it National and not Reagan - National and (acc to colleague) the Metro authority has refused to update the maps, so now congress is threatening them with a loss of subsidies.

Can any local DC people verify this story.

PS, I don't mean to pass judgement on Reagan as president, the Dems vs. GOP, or any other aspect of US political controversies. I just thought it an interesting local aviation related story I heard.

I may be ugly. I may be an American. But don't call me an ugly American.

I don't live there but do go there quite often. A lot of people still refer to it as National, but more just as short hand it seems. Kind of a waste to call it Reagan National Airport. If you say National everyone knows what your talking about. I'm sure there are a few that do it for political reasons, but that hasn't been my experience. On the other hand I do notice airline gates agents almost always call it Reagan National Airport for flight announcements.

Here in ANC, the renamed the air port the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport which I think is gay as hell. So, I go out of my way to call it Anchorage International. The other one is just too long a name for an airport and, hey, Ted Stevens ain't dead yet anyway.

Ive been a Washington DC resident since 1990. Most of us (Metro-DC residents) still call it National Airport. However, die-hard fans of President Reagan call it by its new name. Some of these fans tend to be rather abrasive when you refer to the airport as National Airport. They're welcome to get all riled up over it - just don't waste my time fulminating over a non-issue.

I suppose in 50 yrs everyone will refer to it as Reagan Airport. There is a very well funded attempt by the GOP, amongst others, to ensure that every county in the US has at least one public building named after Reagan, and they tend to be rather zealous about it. To date, they have succeeded in 45% of all counties.

There was a story in the Washington Post about this... Georgia Republican Barr, who was the guy who pushed the name change, is now threatening the Metro Washington Transit Authority over their refusal to change the Metro station name to Reagan National. Now Metro claims this will cost several hundred thousand dollars to change signage system wide. Also at issue are wheter or not Metrobus should carry the new DC "taxation without representation" license plates.

I really do love DC, certainly never run out of interesting things there.

Stop drop and roll will not save you in hell. --- seen on a church marque in rural Virginia

Yes, this really is the situation in DC. I grew up there, and I was PISSED OFF that a bunch of men from out of town would come here and name our airport after another man from out of town, especially one that this town didn't like very much. It was quite a slap in the face.

It's not even political either. You don't have Democrats calling it National, while Republicans call it Reagan. It seems pretty universal in fact that everyone calls it National, and I'll be damned if someone forces me to call it by any other name.

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I think that renaming the airport was in poor judgement, especially considering all of the buildings that have been named after him since he left office. And in some respects, naming an airport after the President who fired the air traffic controllers could be seen as in bad taste. I mean it's one thing to name an aircraft carrier after Reagan, but it's quite another to plaster it on anything you can. There have been politicians wanting to carve Reagan onto Mount Rushmore. Likewise, in Houston, IAH is now known as George Bush Intercontinental Airport, and people still refer to it as Intercontinental.